Media centers ,could be cd or more.

ben62670

They have mini laptops at compusa with HD's.
http://www.compusa.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4483582&CatId=4013

adam2434

The newer Aspire's have a decent size HD, just are too small to have a CD/DVD drive.

venomclan

Thanks Adam,
This looks like a cool option and an added bonus as a travel laptop. Would there be any reason I could not add Microsoft Office suite to it? I guess I would have to put the file on a flash drive copied from the CD?

I did nto know about the USB to optical converter. As long as there is no ausio loss, I can see uning it. I have benchmark Dac with great jitter control. Target has the 160gig version for $300. I would have to do more research on the converter to see if it is up to snuff.
V

adam2434 wrote: »

Did you mean a USB-toslink adapter?

If so, there is no simple adapter. You need electronics to make a USB to SPDIF conversions – something like a Trends UD-10.1, HagUSB, or Pop Pulse.

Or, on the cheap for around $30, the Behringer UCA202 will convert USB to optical SPDIF. I don’t see why this wouldn’t be perfectly fine when used with a DAC with good jitter rejection.

My daughter has the higher-end Aspire One, which was around $380 – bigger hd and 6 cell battery. For audio, the 6 cell battery is cool because you could essentially keep your transport off the power grid for several hours of listening.

The keyboard is obviously smaller than a typical laptop’s, but is still very usable for a man with large hands.

My daughter’s is so quiet that I thought they somehow made them without a fan. There is a fan, but it is very quiet. Plus, the processor they use is supposed to run very cool.

They are basically a scaled-down full-featured laptop running XP, without a CD/DVD drive.

If you fill up the internal hd, you could play files from an external hd.

Another benefit is that you would not need another monitor for 2-ch, as you could use the Acer's screen. And when you want to view the Acer on your LCD, you just use a VGA cable.

adam2434

Venom, yeah you could run Office on it. In fact, my daughter downloaded a trial version, and I believe you can purchase and download Office as an option.

The Trends converter has a great rep, but it's around $180.
http://www.audio-magus.com/product_p/109305.htm

Sami

adam2434 wrote: »

Venom, yeah you could run Office on it. In fact, my daughter downloaded a trial version, and I believe you can purchase and download Office as an option.[/URL]

FYI: http://www.openoffice.org/

venomclan

adam2434 wrote: »

Venom, yeah you could run Office on it. In fact, my daughter downloaded a trial version, and I believe you can purchase and download Office as an option.

The Trends converter has a great rep, but it's around $180.
http://www.audio-magus.com/product_p/109305.htm

I guess my question is, can I add any program to the Acer that I have on disk now, like I would with an XP desktop? While it has no disk drive, I presume just copying th files and running setup?.

adam2434

venomclan wrote: »

I guess my question is, can I add any program to the Acer that I have on disk now, like I would with an XP desktop? While it has no disk drive, I presume just copying th files and running setup?.

I think that would work for most software, however, I'm not sure about Office being installed on multiple computers from one copy of the software. Does Office let you use the same product key/license on multiple computers?

Sami

adam2434 wrote: »

I think that would work for most software, however, I'm not sure about Office being installed on multiple computers from one copy of the software. Does Office let you use the same product key/license on multiple computers?

It lets you but it's not legal. Instead of MS Office I would recommend using the free OpenOffice I posted link to earlier. It is compatible with MS Office.

okiepolkie

Sami wrote: »

It lets you but it's not legal. Instead of MS Office I would recommend using the free OpenOffice I posted link to earlier. It is compatible with MS Office.

Open office is actually pretty cool. It is close enough that the school district I use to work for (2500+computers) went completely to Open Office. It saves them quite a bit of money, as they don't have to pay for site licenses for multiple MS Office platforms.

Plus, you can just download it, so you don't have to have a disk.

adam2434

I'll have to look into OpenOffice - thanks.

I assume files are cross-compatable with MS Office.

Do they use the same extensions?

Sami

Yes, they are compatible. The native format OpenOffice uses is different, but you can open MS Office files and save them. In practice you choose which format you want to use. It's also notable that newer versions of MS Office support Open Document Format (ODF). I have a legit copy of Office at home but I have switched to OpenOffice since it is also platform independent (works in OSX, Windows, Linux).

adam2434

Can files created in OpenOffice be opened and edited in MS Office?

Dan, sorry for taking your thread off topic...

Sami

adam2434 wrote: »

Can files created in OpenOffice be opened and edited in MS Office?

I believe starting from Office 2007 there is support for native OpenOffice files. If you need to send the documents to someone with MS Office, you can always save them in MS Office format. Just give it a try, it's free so there's nothing to lose.

adam2434

Ah, I see, you can just create/save the files in MS Office format for instant compatibility. Then, I assume you can use OpenOffice to edit the MS Office format files you created in OpenOffice without the need to convert them back to the OpenOffice format. Bottom line is that you would only need one version of a file (MS Office format) to be compatible with MS Office and OpenOffice.

Sound right?

Sami

adam2434 wrote: »

Sound right?

Yes.